‘BEYOND THE WALLS’: ETHNIC PRISON

“Beyond the Walls” (at the Fine Arts) has all the familiar ingredients of a strong prison drama: overcrowded cells, brutal guards under an evil chief, warring inmates, torture, drugs, rebellion, gang rape--the whole lot.

But there’s a crucial difference: The prison is somewhere in Israel, and it houses Arabs as well as Jews. Consequently, it’s much more than a genre piece (of which it is a solid example). Director Uri Barbash and his co-writers have deftly turned it into an allegory on Arab-Israeli relations that makes a plea for reconciliation. Having swept the Israeli Oscars and having received an unprecedented request from the Knesset for a special screening, “Beyond the Walls” is now an Academy Award nominee for best foreign film.

The prison’s burly chief guard (Hilel Ne’eman), it would seem, has got into the habit of eliminating troublemakers by blaming their deaths on their ethnic adversaries--if it’s an Israeli who has to be done away with, the warden can always pin it on the Arabs, and vice versa. (It would appear that the Arab prisoners have been convicted of political terrorism while the Israelis are for the most part standard criminals.)

But in time, the two leaders (Arnon Zadok, Muhamad Bakri) of their respective factions start smelling a rat and come to the realization that they and their men are being savagely exploited. Gradually, and over the predictable objections of their followers, they begin forming an alliance in an attempt to resist and expose the corrupt, cruel prison hierarchy. “Beyond the Walls” leaves us with the feeling that this hierarchy stands for any foreign power that would exploit Arab-Israeli enmity for its own purposes.

If “Beyond the Walls” has too much energy to seem as contrived as this description might suggest, it is scarcely subtle in socking over its simple plea for brotherhood. But this message is of such urgency, and expressed with such passionate and courageous sincerity, that on its own volatile, all-stops-out terms “Beyond the Walls” generates considerable emotional impact. Barbash also makes his inevitably confined setting work for him, the restlessness of the inmates keying the film’s rhythmic pacing. The few settings also make for considerable theatricality in the performances. “Beyond the Walls,” however, never smacks of the filmed play, but you can imagine it being most effective on stage.

With eyes so dark as to photograph pitch black, Zadok has a brooding, intense presence. Best known for co-starring in Costa-Gavras’ “Hannah K.,” the handsome, hollow-cheeked Bakri underplays to Zadok’s explosiveness. When Zadok asks Bakri how he could blow up a crowded bus (which has earned him two life sentences), Bakri replies by asking how could an Israeli strafe an entire Arab village, causing many more deaths. This brief exchange sums up what “Beyond the Walls” (rated R for typical prison violence) is all about.